Press release: (Download the full report below)

The Hague – The Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) today released its ninth annual report on the most notable violations by Russian forces since the launch of Russia’s military intervention on September 30, 2015. In the latest report, the group reveals that Russian forces have killed 6,969 civilians to date in Syria, 44 percent of whom were women and children. Russian forces have also carried out 1,251 attacks on vital civilian facilities.

The 32-page report notes that, since Russia officially launched its military intervention in Syria on September 30, 2015, thus becoming a full-fledged party to the Syrian conflict, SNHR has documented numerous human rights violations perpetrated by Russia’s armed forces. Indeed, Moscow had adopted a very clear stance from the very beginning of the popular uprising that began in March 2011 calling for a political change and the end of the absolute, authoritarian hereditary rule of the Assad family that has ruled Syria since 1970. In keeping with this position, Russia has thrown all its political weight behind the Syrian regime. Russia has also backed the regime militarily, with actions ranging from providing military advice, to subsequently launching a direct and massive military intervention, which is wholly illegitimate, as SNHR has explained in numerous reports, since it is based on receiving the approval of a regime that attained and has clung to power through military brute force, rather than through constitutional means or democratic elections. The report also notes that that Russia’s military intervention has involved innumerable human rights violations including killing, large-scale destruction, forced displacement, the use of cluster munitions, and the bombardment of vital civilian facilities.

In the words of Fadel Abdul Ghany, SNHR Executive Director:

 “Russia has never launched even one investigation into any violations committed by its forces, nor has it held accountable any commander for the bombing of hospitals, markets, and schools despite having committed thousands of human rights violations. On the contrary, Moscow has been denying the credibility of documented reports, and calling them fabrications and misinformation, sinking to the same level as the Syrian regime. Moscow must uphold its legal responsibilities, launch serious investigations, and start compensating victims.”

The report notes that Russia’s military intervention has helped the regime to recapture large areas that broke out of the regime’s control in the period 2011-2015. This is far from the only Russian violation against Syria’s people; Russia has supported the Syrian regime in every conceivable way, including providing supposed justifications for the use of chemical weapons, trying to undermine the credibility of the reports issued by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), exploiting cross-border humanitarian aid, using its media platforms to spread pro-regime propaganda, and trying to rehabilitate and polish the Syrian regime’s image. On the political front, Moscow’s support has been manifested by blocking any international condemnation of the Syrian regime at the UN Security Council. In fact, Russia has crippled the Security Council in regard to holding the Syrian regime accountable for the crimes against humanity. Russia has used its veto powers 18 times to date, four before its military intervention in 2015, and 14 more times since then, which indicates its involvement in the commission of widespread violations with the Syrian regime, and its desire to shield itself from any referral to the International Criminal Court (ICC). Russia has also voted at all Human Rights Council (HRC) sessions against any resolutions condemning the savage brutality used by the regime against Syrian dissidents, on a total of 21 occasions. In addition to all these points, Russia has instructed its allies at the HRC, including Algeria, Venezuela, and Cuba, to vote in favor of the Syrian regime.

The report stresses that SNHR has been able to construct a large database containing compelling evidence on the violations committed by Russian forces in unlawful attacks in Syria, many of which amount to crimes against humanity and war crimes. On this subject, SNHR has published news articles on all the most prominent attacks by Russian forces documented by the group. The report adds that SNHR has also consistently worked tirelessly to supply detailed reports and investigations recording all the attacks by Russian forces that resulted in massacres or the destruction of primary service civilian facilities, such as hospitals and schools, or involving the use of internationally prohibited weapons, such as cluster munitions. This work has been carried out in addition to SNHR’s annual report that we release on September 30 of every year. Furthermore, the report notes that SNHR has worked steadfastly to expose Russia’s pro-regime practices and crimes against the Syrian people since the start of the popular uprising for democracy in Syria in March 2011. These includes Russia’s support for the regime in the economic, political, and international spheres.

The report provides an updated breakdown of the most notable human rights violations committed by Russian forces since the launch of the military intervention on September 30, 2015, up until September 30, 2024. In assigning culpability to Russia in certain attacks, the report explains, SNHR draws upon a wide range of scrupulously cross-checked information, statements by Russian officials, and a large number of first-hand accounts.

The report further notes that, as SNHR’s database attests, Russian forces in Syria have killed 6,969 civilians, including 2,055 children and 983 women (adult female) to date, and committed no fewer than 362 massacres. Analysis of the data shows that the intervention’s first year (2015-2016) was the bloodiest to date, with 3,564 civilians killed, accounting for about 51 percent of all victims killed to date, while Aleppo governorate saw the most victims (around 41 percent) followed by Idlib (38 percent).

Furthermore, the report documents that Russian forces have so far killed 70 medical personnel, including 12 women, mostly in Idlib governorate, with the highest proportion of these victims also killed in the first year of the intervention, as well as 24 media workers, all of whom were killed in the governorates of Aleppo and Idlib.

As the report further reveals, Russia has carried out no fewer than 1,251 attacks on vital civilian facilities, including 224 schools, 209 medical facilities, and 61 markets, since the launch of its military intervention. As the graphs included in the report show, the intervention’s first year saw 452 attacks on vital civilian facilities by Russian forces, with Idlib being subjected to the largest number of attacks, 633 in all, accounting for 51 percent of the total.

The report also reveals that Russian forces have carried out at least 237 cluster munition attacks and no fewer than 125 attacks using incendiary materials since the launch of Russia’s military intervention on September 30, 2015.

The report stresses that the ferocious level of violence shown in Russia’s attacks has played a major role in displacement movements in Syria, with Russian attacks, in parallel with those of the Syrian-Iranian alliance, leading to the displacement of approximately 4.9 million people, most of whom have been displaced more than once.

The report concludes by reiterating that the Russian regime has been implicated since the very start of the uprising for freedom in supporting the Syrian regime, which has committed war crimes and crimes against humanity against the Syrian people, by providing the regime with weapons, military expertise, and direct military intervention on the side of the regime. The report further notes that Russia has frequently used its right to veto despite becoming a direct party to the Syrian conflict, which is a blatant violation of the United Nations’ Charter. All of Russia’s vetoes have been employed by the Syrian regime to ensure its impunity, the report adds, further noting that the Russian authorities have not conducted any serious investigations into any of the attacks listed in this report or in previous reports. The report holds the Russian leadership, both military and political, responsible for all of these attacks, based on the principle of command responsibility under international humanitarian law.

The report calls on the UN Security Council to refer the Syrian case to the International Criminal Court and to hold all those involved accountable. It further calls on the international community to increase support for relief efforts, and to endeavor to employ universal jurisdiction for these crimes in fair trials held in national courts to ensure that all perpetrators are held to account, to support the political transition process, and to put pressure on all parties to oblige them to implement the political transition process within no more than six months.

The report additionally recommends that the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic (COI) should conduct extensive investigations into the incidents included in this report and should clearly hold the Russian forces involved responsible if sufficient evidence is found of their involvement. It further calls on the European Union to impose economic sanctions on Russia for the crimes against humanity and war crimes it has perpetrated in Syria, as well as making a number of other recommendations.

Press release: (Download the full report below)

The Hague – The Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) today released its eighth annual report on the most notable violations by Russian forces since the launch of Russia’s military intervention on September 30, 2015. In the latest report, the group reveals that Russian forces have killed 6,954 civilians to date in Syria, including 2,046 children, and carried out 1,246 attacks on vital civilian facilities.

The 26-page report notes that, Russia has played an instrumental role in obstructing the will of the Syrian people since the early days of the popular uprising. In its attempts to justify its position, behavior, and support of the Assad regime, Moscow has given different, and sometimes contradictory, supposed pretexts. Moreover, over the course of the popular uprising in Syria, Russia has consistently shielded the Syrian regime, as well as supporting it logistically, politically, economically, and militarily. In the political sphere, Russia has provided support through blocking any international condemnation of the Syrian regime’s actions at the UN Security Council, which has been effectively crippled, preventing it from taking any meaningful action in relation to the Syrian regime’s crimes against humanity, thanks to Russia’s using its veto powers on 18 separate occasions – four times before the launch of its military intervention and 14 times since. The report adds that Russia has also voted against all resolutions condemning the Syrian regime’s vicious and brutal attacks on any opposition at all on 21 occasions during UN Human Rights Council sessions. Even more damningly, Russia has mobilized allied or subservient states, including Algeria, Venezuela and Cuba, to do the same.

In the words of Fadel Abdul Ghany, SNHR Executive Director:
“Every year, we reiterate our human rights position, namely that Russia’s intervention in Syria is unlawful because it is based on a request by an illegitimate regime that claimed power through fire and iron, rather than through a constitution and legitimate elections. In addition to this, Russian forces chose to intervene in support of a regime that was and is engaged in perpetrating crimes against humanity, before even mentioning the war crimes and crimes against humanity which Russia itself has committed in Syria. All these facts render Russia’s presence in Syria unlawful. Russia must pay restitution to the families of the victim it has killed and rebuild the vital facilities and homes it has destroyed.”

The report provides an updated breakdown of the most notable violations of human rights committed by Russian forces since the launch of the military intervention up until September 30, 2023. In assigning culpability to Russia in certain attacks, the report explains, SNHR draws upon a wide range of scrupulously cross-checked information, statements by Russian officials, and a large number of first-hand accounts.

The report further notes that, as SNHR’s database attests, Russian forces in Syria have killed 6,954 civilians, including 2,046 children and 978 women (adult female), and committed no fewer than 360 massacres. Analysis of the data shows that the intervention’s first year was the bloodiest (with about 52 percent of all victims killed by Russia killed in the intervention’s first year), while Aleppo governorate saw the most victims (around 41 percent) followed by Idlib (38 percent).

Furthermore, the report documents that Russian forces killed 70 medical personnel, including 12 women, mostly in Aleppo governorate, with the highest proportion of these victims also killed in the first year of the intervention, 44 Civil Defense Personnel, half of whom were killed in Idlib governorate where the highest death toll was documented, accounting for 35 percent of all Civil Defense personnel killed in the first year of the intervention, and 24 media workers, all of whom were killed in the governorates of Aleppo and Idlib.

As the report further reveals, Russia has carried out no fewer than 1,246 attacks on vital civilian facilities, including 223 schools, 207 medical facilities, and 61 markets, since the launch of its military intervention. As the graphs included in the report show, the intervention’s first year saw 452 attacks on vital civilian facilities by Russian forces, with Idlib being subjected to the largest number of attacks, 629 in all, accounting for 51 percent of the total.

Furthermore, the report reveals that Russian forces have carried out no fewer than 237 cluster munition attacks and no fewer than 125 attacks using incendiary since the launch of Russia’s military intervention on September 30, 2015.
The report stresses that the ferocious level of violence shown in Russia’s attacks has played a major role in displacement movements in Syria, with Russian attacks, in parallel with those of the Syrian-Iranian alliance, leading to the displacement of approximately 4.8 million people, most of whom have been displaced more than once.

The report further stresses that despite all these well-documented crimes perpetrated by its forces, Russian authorities continue to this day to deny carrying out any attacks against civilians in Syria. Meanwhile, the Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Sergei Lavrov, repeatedly claims that Russia’s intervention is lawful because it took place at the request of the Syrian regime and supposedly for the purpose of combating ISIS. Mr. Lavrov asserts that his country’s government is complying with the rules of international humanitarian law, while apparently completely ignoring the fact that Russia has never launched even one investigation into the confirmed information of Russian involvement in numerous violations through its attacks, which qualify as war crimes according to many UN reports, as well as international and local reports.

The report concludes by reiterating that the Russian regime has been involved since the start in supporting the Syrian regime, which has committed war crimes and crimes against humanity against the Syrian people, by providing it with weapons, military expertise, and direct military intervention on the side of the regime. The report further notes that Russia has frequently used its right to veto despite becoming a direct party to the Syrian conflict, which is a blatant violation of the Charter of the United Nations. All of Russia’s vetoes have been employed by the Syrian regime to enjoy impunity, the report adds, further noting that the Russian authorities have not conducted any serious investigations into any of the attacks included in this report or in previous reports. The Russian leadership, both military and political, bear responsibility for all of these attacks, based on the principle of command responsibility under international humanitarian law.

The report calls on the UN Security Council to refer the Syrian case to the International Criminal Court and to hold all those involved accountable. It further calls on the international community to increase support for relief efforts, and to endeavor to employ universal jurisdiction for these crimes in fair trials held in national courts to ensure that all perpetrators are held to account, to support the political transition process, and to put pressure on all parties to oblige them to implement the political transition process within no more than six months.

The report additionally recommends that the Commission of Inquiry (COI) should conduct extensive investigations into the incidents included in this report and should clearly hold the Russian forces responsible if sufficient evidence is found of their involvement. It further calls on the European Union to impose economic sanctions on Russia for the crimes against humanity and war crimes it has perpetrated in Syria, as well as making a number of other recommendations.

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Press release: (Download the full report below)

Paris – The Syrian Network for Human Rights today issues its seventh annual report on the most notable Russian forces violations since the beginning of Russia’s military intervention in Syria on September 30, 2015, has documented the deaths of 6,943 civilians, including 2,044 children and 1,243 attacks on vital civilian facilities at the hands of these forces.

The 33-page report noted that since the early days of the people’s uprising for freedom, Russia has opposed the people’s wishes for democratic change in Syria, using various, and sometimes contradictory, justifications. Russia has provided the Syrian regime with all kinds of logistical, political, economic and military support. There is no doubt that Russia has played a decisive role in consolidating the Syrian regime’s hold on power and impeding any political progress towards democracy, which has enabled the regime to simply disregard negotiations, especially after recapturing large areas of the Syrian territories over which it had previously lost control, thanks to Russia’s military might. The report adds that Russia has abused its UN veto against the interests of the Syrian people to protect the Syrian regime 17 times to date, four of these before its direct military intervention in Syria, and 13 since. Russia has also voted in all the UN Human Rights Council sessions during which it was present, 21 times in all, against all the council’s resolutions condemning the Syrian regime’s violence and brutality, even mobilizing its allies, including Algeria, Venezuela, Cuba and other dictatorial countries to vote in favor of the Syrian regime.

Fadel Abdul Ghany, SNHR’s Executive Director, says:
“Following the Illegitimate military intervention of Russia in Syria, and its committing horrible atrocities including the bombardment of hospitals and residential neighborhoods and killing hundreds of civilians, the West did not impose any sanctions against Russia because of all those violations, some of which amount to crimes against humanity. We believe that the sense of impunity Russia has for the crimes it perpetrated in Syria encouraged it to move forward with its policy and violate international law in Ukraine. Russia must be held accountable for what it has done against the Syrian people and state.”

The report includes an update on the most notable human rights violations perpetrated by the Russian forces since its military intervention in Syria on September 30, 2015 up to September 30, 2022. The report’s assignment of responsibility for attacks to the Russian forces relied on cross-checking a large number of information, statements made by Russian officials, and gathering a large number of first-hand accounts, especially the accounts of the central radar workers.

The report reveals that, as documented by SNHR’s database, the Russian forces have killed 6,943 civilians, including 2,044 children and 977 women (adult females), and committed no less than 360 massacres. The analysis of the data shows that the first year of the Russian intervention saw the highest death toll, accounting for around 52% of the total number of deaths, followed by the second year of intervention with around 23%. Aleppo Governorate suffered the highest death toll, followed by Idlib. Statistics indicate that around 79% of the total death toll occurred in these two governorates – about 41% in Aleppo and 38% in Idlib.
The report also documents the death of 70 medical personnel, including 12 women (adult females), at the hands of the Russian forces, mostly in Aleppo governorate, with the highest annual death toll of medical personnel documented in the first year. In addition, the report documents the death of 44 Civil Defense members (White Helmets), half of whom were killed in Idlib governorate, where the highest death toll was recorded. The first year of Russia’s intervention witnessed the highest number of casualties, around 35% of the total. The report also documents the deaths of 24 media activists, all of whom were killed in Aleppo and Idlib governorates.

As the report reveals, since Russia’s initial intervention up until September 30, 2022, Russian forces have perpetrated no fewer than 1,243 attacks on vital civilian facilities, including 223 schools, 207 medical facilities, and 60 marketplaces. The statistics provided in the report show that the first year of the intervention saw 452 attacks on vital civilian facilities, with Idlib suffering the largest number of attacks on vital civilian facilities, an exceptionally high total of 626 in all, accounting for 51% of the total attacks documented.

The report also notes that Russian forces have perpetrated at least 237 attacks using cluster munitions and at least 125 attacks using incendiary munitions since Russia’s military intervention in Syria on September 30, 2015.

The report further reveals that the escalating violence practiced by Russian forces has had the largest impact in terms of forced displacement movement. Russian attacks, in parallel with the attacks launched by the Syrian-Iranian alliance contributed to the displacement of approximately 4.8 million people, most of whom are civilians who have been displaced several times.

The report stresses the illegitimacy of the Russian military intervention in the internal conflict in Syria, and notes that Russia constantly proclaims to the world that its intervention in Syria is legal, based on the Syrian regime invitation asked Russia to intervene militarily, suggesting falsely that the Syrian regime is a legitimate government. Russia also relies on UN Security Council Resolution 2249 of November 2015, which was adopted nearly two months after its intervention. The resolution called upon “Member States that have the capacity […] to take all necessary measures […] to prevent and suppress terrorist acts […] on the territory under the control of ISIL also known as Da’esh, in Syria and Iraq.” The report demonstrates, however, that the Russian military intervention in Syria is illegitimate, mainly for the following reasons:
1. For the intervention to be validated by invitation, the approval of the state is not sufficient. Rather, the authority that made the invitation must be legitimate. The Syrian regime seized power through elections that were held under the threatening, repression and terror by security services, with no free and fair elections taking place, or any constitution being legally written. It is a dictatorship that is hostile to the most basic principles of human rights. In addition to these points, the Syrian regime is involved in committing crimes against humanity against the Syrian people, according to the reports of the UN Commission of Inquiry, with these and many other reasons challenging the legitimacy of the current Syrian regime.
2. Russia’s military intervention violates Russia’s obligations under international law. Russia’s intervention on the side of a regime involved in crimes against humanity, including torture, the use of chemical weapons, enforced disappearance, etc., violates many fundamental norms of international law and even makes it an accomplice to the violations perpetrated by the Syrian regime.
3. The Russian forces themselves have committed thousands of heinous violations in Syria, some of which, such as extrajudicial executions and enforced displacement, constitute crimes against humanity. Other crimes perpetrated by Russian forces, such as bombing hospitals and civil defense centers, constitute war crimes. This has been documented by many international reports, as well as by SNHR reports and data.

The report notes that Russia has exerted huge diplomatic efforts to block any political solution, from the Geneva Communiqué up until now. It tried to create a political process under its control, that has become known as the Astana Process. It has also contributed to minimizing the political solution and limiting this to a constitutional committee that has failed to draft one line for years. The report emphasizes that Russia is seeking to help the Syrian regime control the UN aid allocated to northwest Syria and looting as much of it as possible, Russia used its veto over the past year against renewing the mechanism for cross-border aid delivery, specifically for the fourth time in this regard.

The report underscores that Russia, and the Syrian regime have continued to promote the false idea that Syria is safe and stable in the areas under the Syrian regime’s control, and is ready to receive returning refugees. The Syrian regime, at Russia’s request, has continued its promotional campaign for the “return of refugees” by holding a series of meetings for what they referred to as “the International Conference on the Return of Syrian Refugees,” the latest of which was the Fourth Conference, which was held on 14 June, 2022, entirely disregarding the fact that they, the Russian and Syrian regimes, are the cause of the destruction and displacement of millions of Syrians. Russia has also aimed, through its close ally, the Algerian regime, to bring back the Syrian regime to the Arab League, but has so far failed to do so.

The report highlights the fact that Russian officials have stated on several occasions that Russia is experimenting new munitions in Syria and that this contributes to the increase of the Russian forces’ combat capabilities. In the seventh year of its intervention in Syria, the Russian forces announced the introduction of new, high-quality weapons to their military arsenal after confirming their effectiveness and testing them in Syria.

In the report ‘s conclusion, it states that the Russian regime has been involved in supporting the Syrian regime, which has committed war crimes and crimes against humanity against the Syrian people by providing it with weapons and military expertise and direct military intervention to the side of the regime. The report further states that Russia has used its right to veto many times despite becoming a party to the Syrian conflict, which is a violation of the Charter of the United Nations. All of Russia’s vetoes have been employed by the Syrian regime to enjoy impunity. The Russian authorities have not conducted any serious investigations into any of the attacks included in this report or in previous reports. The Russian leadership, both military and political, bear responsibility for all of these attacks, based on the principle of command responsibility under International Humanitarian Law.

The report calls on the UN Security Council to refer the Syrian case to the International Criminal Court and to hold all those involved accountable. It further calls on the international community to increase support for relief efforts, and to endeavor to employ universal jurisdiction for those crimes within national courts in fair trials to hold all perpetrators to account and support the political transition process, and to impose pressure on all parties to oblige them to implement the political transition process within no more than six months.

The report recommends that the COI conduct extensive investigations into the incidents included in this report and to clearly hold the Russian forces responsible if sufficient evidence is found of their involvement. It further calls on the European Union to impose economic sanctions on Russia for the crimes against humanity and war crimes it has perpetrated in Syria, in addition to making a number of other recommendations.

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Press release: (Download the full report below)

Paris – The Syrian Network for Human Rights issued a report today entitled “Russia’s Air Force Used Its Double-Tap Airstrike Strategy in Its Latest Attack on al Jadida Village in Idlib Suburbs”, in which it noted that 329 civilians have been killed between the start of the ‘ceasefire agreement’ on March 6, 2020, and the end of July 2022.
The 17-page report documents the airstrike launched by a fixed-wing warplane on the outskirts of al Jadida village in the western suburbs of Idlib on July 22, 2022. The report concludes that the warplane which carried out the attack was most likely Russian and that it carried out a double-tap airstrike. The report also provides the death toll of victims killed at the hands of the Russo-Syrian alliance forces between March 6, 2020, (the date on which the Turkish-Russian ceasefire agreement entered into force) and July 23, 2022. In addition, the report stresses that these brutal attacks on civilians are frequent, have not ceased, and take place without any accountability or attention.

As the report notes, the massacre documented took place only three days after the Tehran summit was held on July 19, 2022, which brought together the presidents of the guarantor states of the Astana Talks, in the Iranian capital, and at which they stressed the necessity to maintain calm on the ground by fully implementing all agreements on Idlib. The report adds that this fact further confirms the fact that there are no guarantees or pressures that can stop Russia or the Syrian regime from launching deliberate and deadly attacks aimed at killing civilians. Rather, these attacks have become lethal Russian ‘messages’, in which the Syrians, who have become hostages, are paying the price of regional and international inconsistencies.

Fadel Abdul Ghany, the SNHR’s Director, says:
“This horrific massacre proves once again that the Syrian people are mere hostages, and that their lives are viewed as a bargaining chip. Russia has not committed to any agreement to which it was a party, it is not interested in achieving any political transition, and it is still using the tactic of killing and blackmailing to maintain the current regime, regardless of the cost in terms of the losses of the Syrian people and the state.”

The report reveals that the attacks by Syrian-Russian alliance forces between March 6, 2020, and July 23, 2022, in northwest Syria resulted in the deaths of 329 civilians, including 114 children and 50 women (adult female), in addition to perpetrating 12 massacres; 233 of the victims, including 75 children and 34 women, were killed at the hands of Syrian regime forces, who perpetrated seven massacres, while Russian forces killed 96 civilians, including 39 children and 16 women, and perpetrated five massacres.
As the report reveals, the 12 massacres documented during this period resulted in the deaths of 81 civilians, including 33 children and 14 women (adult female). This means that nearly 59 percent of all the victims were women and children, a very high proportion, and a clear indication that civilian residents have been the specific targets in most of these massacres.

This report documents the details of the airstrike on the outskirts of al Jadida village in the western suburbs of Idlib, when fixed-wing warplanes carried out four raids on two locations on the outskirts of al Jadida village at around dawn on Friday, July 22, 2022. The raids resulted in the deaths of seven civilians, including four sibling children, (three females and one male), and injured 13 other civilians. The first attack, consisting of two air raids targeting an IDP shelter north of al Jadida village, resulted in the deaths of six civilians, including four children (three females and one male). This attack constitutes a massacre of civilians. Meanwhile, the second attack, in which two air raids targeted two houses south of the village, resulted in the death of one civilian.
The report stresses that Syrian and Russian forces have violated several rules of International Humanitarian Law, primarily by failing to discriminate between civilians and combatants or between civilian and military targets, instead bombing hospitals, schools, civilian centers and neighborhoods, with these violations amounting to war crimes. The Syrian and Russian regimes’ forces have also undoubtedly violated UN Security Council Resolutions 2139 and 2254 which demanded the cessation of indiscriminate attacks.
The report recommends that the UN Security Council must take additional steps following its adoption of Resolution 2254, which clearly insists that “all parties immediately cease any attacks against civilians and civilian objects as such,” refer the Syrian issue to the International Criminal Court, and hold all those involved accountable, including the Russian regime whose involvement in war crimes has been repeatedly proven. The report also recommends that the UN Secretary-General should condemn this brutal massacre in the strongest terms, should not ignore the premeditated killing of Syrian citizens, and should request that the Security Council take urgent action and hold an emergency meeting to ensure a ceasefire and to protect tens of thousands of displaced civilians, in addition to making several more recommendations.

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Paris – Statement by the Syrian Network for Human Rights:
 
The operation carried out by the US-led coalition forces on Thursday, February 3, 2022, which targeted a residential house consisting of two floors and a basement in the north of Atama village in the northern suburbs of Idlib, demonstrated that leaders and members of ISIS extremist organization might be deployed in many areas, including areas that have never been controlled by the organization, such as Atama village and others. We have documented dozens of occasions on which the organization took civilians as human shields and took cover among them in the areas it controlled. Raqqa city may be one of the most prominent examples of this, with SNHR highlighting the subject previously, revealing that ISIS confiscated many civilians’ homes under the pretext of the supposed “blasphemy” of their owners and the “confiscation” of their money, turning these homes into residences for its security and military leaders and living among civilians, most of whom the group referred to as infidels, while at the same time using them as human shields. ISIS has also used its own members’ families as human shields, including women and children.
 
We at the Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) have documented the deaths of at least 3,048 civilians at the hands of the US-led coalition forces, including 925 children, since September 2014 up to the current date (in the last attack on the house where ISIS leader Abdullah Qardash was staying, we documented civilian casualties, including women and children; investigations are still underway to determine how this happened); many of these civilians were killed due to the US-led coalition forces’ failure to observe the principle of proportionality in international law, which is based on the attacking party’s carefully assessing the context before determining the legality or illegality of the attack. Any attack that will cause losses and damages exceeding the potential military advantage is prohibited, so a balance must always be maintained between the means, the goal, and the action results.
 
ISIS bears the responsibility of residing in civilian neighborhoods, which poses a threat to all these neighborhoods and bearing responsibility for endangering the families of its members. It should also be noted, however, that the Syrian regime, Russia, and Syrian Democratic Forces are all exploiting this situation to stigmatize entire areas as incubators for extremist organizations, in an attempt to give the appearance of being primarily concerned with combating terrorism and using this as justification for the indiscriminate or deliberately targeted bombing of residential areas, bearing in mind that the areas whose populations have been worst affected by extremist organizations have been those areas under the group’s control, whose residents have been subject to laws dating back to the most barbaric periods of the dark ages. Recently, we issued two reports on violations by Hay’at Tahrir al Sham and ISIS against Syrian society, which highlight this issue.
 

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Paris – The Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) has released its sixth annual report on Russian forces’ violations since the start of Russia’s military intervention in Syria on September 30, 2015, in which SNHR states that some of these violations amount to crimes against humanity and war crimes, noting that Russia’s wholly illegitimate military intervention has resulted in the death of 6,910 civilians, including 2,030 children, and carried out 1,231 attacks on vital facilities.

The report stresses that Russia’s military intervention in the internal armed conflict in Syria is completely illegitimate, adding that Russia bases the supposed legitimacy of its intervention in the country primarily on two pretexts, namely that its intervention came at the request of the Syrian regime, which Russia asserts is a legitimate regime and speaks in the name of the state, and that the legitimacy of its presence is based on UN Security Council Resolution No. 2249 issued nearly two months after Russia’s military intervention, with this resolution calling on “Member States that have the capacity to do so to take all necessary measures […] on the territory under the control of ISIL also known as Da’esh, in Syria and Iraq, to redouble and coordinate their efforts to prevent and suppress terrorist acts […].”
However, SNHR asserts that Russia’s intervention remains illegitimate, primarily for the following reasons:
1- The approval of the state is not sufficient cause to validate the intervention through its request. Rather, the authority that extends such a request must be legitimate, with the Syrian regime lacking any such legitimacy, having seized power through sham elections staged under coercion, threat, repression and intimidation by the security services, and with no free and fair elections ever having taken place under its rule, and no constitution legally admissible under international law having been written. In addition to all these facts, the Syrian regime is involved in committing multiple crimes against humanity against the Syrian people.
2- Russia’s military intervention has violated Russia’s obligations under international law; by intervening alongside a regime involved in committing crimes against humanity, Russia is violating many peremptory norms of international law, making it an accomplice in the violations committed by the Syrian regime rather than an ally of a legitimate authority.
3- The Russian forces themselves have been involved in committing thousands of horrific violations in Syria, some of which constitute crimes against humanity, while some others constitute war crimes.

The 36-page report reveals that Russian support for the Syrian regime began from the earliest days of the Syrian popular uprising in March 2011 against the Syrian regime, by providing it with expertise, advice, and weapons, by repeatedly using its veto at the Security Council (Russia has used its veto 16 times in favor of the Syrian regime), and by permanently voting at the Human Rights Council against resolutions condemning the Syrian regime’s violence and brutality, and even mobilizing Russia’s allies to vote for the Syrian regime. Russian support for the Syrian regime has extended to various fields, including justifying the regime’s use of chemical weapons, questioning the reports of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, exploiting cross-border humanitarian aid, and harnessing media to promote propaganda in favor of the Syrian regime, attempting to improve its image of or flatly denying its violations.

Fadel Abdul Ghany, Director of the Syrian Network for Human Rights, says:
“Russia has made a terrible mistake by standing by a repressive, authoritarian, sectarian regime, and involving itself in supporting and defending it, with Russia’s own forces even committing violations amounting to crimes against humanity. Russia must re-examine its illegitimate military intervention in Syria, launch investigations into the violations it has committed, and compensate the victims. There will be no stability in Syria and no return of refugees with the survival of the current Syrian regime, so support for it must end, and pressure must be put on it to reach a genuine political transition.”

The report provides an update on the record of the most notable human rights violations committed by the Russian forces since the start of Russia’s military intervention in Syria on September 30, 2015, up until September 30, 2021. In assigning responsibility to Russian forces in relation to specific incidents, the report relies on a number of determinants, including cross-checking large quantities of information and statements published by Russian officials, in addition to cross-checking a large number of first-hand accounts, most of which come from central signal operators.

The report draws attention to the fact that Russian regime has declared on several occasions that Syria is an arena for testing Russian weapons. The report notes that Russian forces continue to bring in and use new weapons in the sixth year of Russia’s military intervention, with the report summarizing in some detail the Russian Krasnopol shell as a model of these new weapons, whose regular use has been extensively documented during the past year, as well as in the recent military campaign on the Jabal al Zaweya area and its vicinity in particular.

The report provides an analysis of the record of the most notable violations committed by Russian forces since Russia’s military intervention in Syria on September 30, 2015, to September 30, 2021, according to SNHR’s database. In this context, the report documents the deaths of 6,910 civilians, including 2,030 children and 974 women (adult female), and at least 357 massacres. Analysis of the data shows that the first year of the Russian intervention saw the highest death toll, approximately 52% of the total record, followed by the second year of the intervention with approximately 23%. Meanwhile, Aleppo governorate saw the highest death toll with approximately 42%, followed by Idlib governorate with approximately 38%.

As the report reveals, Russian forces have killed 70 medical personnel to date, including 12 women, in addition to 44 Civil Defense personnel. The report also documents the deaths of 24 media workers at the hands of Russian forces, all of whom were killed in Aleppo and Idlib governorates.

As the report further reveals, Russian forces have carried out at least 1,231 attacks on vital civilian facilities since the start of Russia’s military intervention in Syria up until September 30, 2021, including 222 attacks on schools, 207 attacks on medical facilities and 60 attacks on markets. As the charts included in the report show, the first year of Russia’s intervention saw 452 attacks on vital civilian facilities, with Idlib governorate having seen the highest number of attacks on vital civilian facilities, reaching 616 in total – 51% of the total number of such attacks.

The report also documents at least 237 cluster munition attacks, in addition to at least 125 attacks with incendiary weapons carried out by Russian forces since their military intervention in Syria on September 30, 2015.

As the report explains, the escalating violence inflicted by Russian forces has had the largest impact in terms of exodus and forced displacement, with Russian attacks, in parallel with attacks carried out by the Syrian-Iranian alliance, resulting in the displacement of approximately 4.7 million people, most of whom have been forcibly displaced multiple times.

As the report explains, Russia’s military intervention in favor of the Syrian regime, and the killing and displacement of hundreds of thousands of Syrians, assisted the Syrian regime to regain approximately 65% of the territories that had escaped its control since 2015 to date. The report provides maps showing the reality of the change of areas of control in favor of the Syrian regime in light of the years of Russia’s military intervention. The report further notes that the sixth year of the intervention saw a noticeable decrease in the intensity of military operations, which was reflected in the record of the violations committed. The report adds that during the sixth year of its military intervention, Russia has intensified its efforts to promote the idea of refugees returning in order to start the reconstruction process, but emphasizes that the Syrian regime does not actually want the refugees or IDPs to return, as it considers them to be its opponents, actively working to keep them outside the areas under its control, whether through continuous arrests of returnees, forcibly conscripting them into its forces, or confiscating the property of absentees. In addition, the conditions for safe, voluntary return set by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees have not yet been met with regard to Syrian refugees. The report stresses that these conditions will not be achieved as long as the regime of Bashar al Assad and the security services that are involved in crimes against humanity and war crimes continue to rule large areas of Syria.

The report concludes that the Russian regime has been and continues to be involved in supporting the Syrian regime, which has committed crimes against humanity against the Syrian people, by providing it with weapons and military expertise and through direct military intervention alongside it. The report explains that Russia has used its veto many times since its direct military intervention even though it is a party to the Syrian conflict, which is a direct violation of the Charter of the United Nations; these uses of the veto have been employed to provide Syria’s regime with impunity for its crimes. The report also stresses that Russian authorities have not conducted any serious investigations into any of the attacks included in this report or in previous reports. The report states that the Russian leadership, both military or political, bears responsibility for these attacks based on the principle of command responsibility under international humanitarian law.

The report calls on the UN Security Council to refer the Syrian issue to the International Criminal Court and to hold all those involved in perpetrating crimes accountable.

The report recommends that the international community should increase support for relief efforts. Additionally, the principle of universal jurisdiction should be applied in local courts regarding these crimes in order to conduct fair trials for all those who were involved. The report also recommends that the international community should support the political transition process and impose pressure to compel the parties to implement the political transition within a time period of no more than six months.
The report concludes by recommending that the international community should form an international civilized alliance outside the Security Council that aims to protect civilians in Syria from Russian and Syrian regime attacks, and expand political and economic sanctions against the Russian regime for committing war crimes in Syria, for continuing to violate sanctions imposed against the Syrian regime, in addition to making several more recommendations.

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Paris – The Syrian Network for Human Rights notes in its report released today that Russian and Syrian regime forces have committed violations that constitute war crimes during ongoing unlawful attacks on and around Jabal al Zaweya area, adding that around 61 civilians have been killed to date, 33 of them by Russian forces, including 20 children, with 13 vital facilities also targeted, between June and September 2021.
 
The report notes that SNHR documented a sudden military escalation by the Syrian-Russian alliance forces since the beginning of June 2021, targeting Jabal al Zaweya area and its surroundings in northwest Syria which remain outside the Syrian regime’s control, mostly by ground attacks on civilian areas, causing civilian casualties and significant material damage to vital facilities. The report explains that this came after a period of relative calm that lasted for months in the wake of the Turkish-Russian ceasefire agreement concluded in March 2020, which did not prevent the Syrian regime and its Iranian ally from carrying out ground bombardment. The report further reveals that 83 civilians, including 44 children and 17 women (adult female), were killed as a result of military attacks by the Syrian-Russian alliance forces on Jabal al Zaweya and its vicinity between March 6, 2020, and September 1, 2021.
 
The 25-page report documents details of the unlawful military attacks by the Syrian-Russian alliance forces between June 5, 2021, and September 1, 2021, and the casualties these attacks caused, as well as of the targeting of vital facilities and residential neighborhoods and the accompanying destruction. The report relies on SNHR’s daily and continuous monitoring process, as well as on direct testimonies from survivors, relatives of victims, aid workers and media activists, with this report providing eight of these testimonies.
 
The report underlines the importance of the Jabal al Zaweya area, providing details on the reality of control by the parties to the conflict over the area, adding that the Syrian-Russian alliance forces have violated the ceasefire and launched military attacks on and around the Jabal al Zaweya area, detailing the most prominent features that distinguished the latest campaign on Jabal al Zaweya and its vicinity since the beginning of June 2021 from the previous campaigns. The report also documents the intense bombardment following the flight of reconnaissance planes, which concentrates on targeting gatherings of people, the use of higher-quality weapons in terms of their accuracy in hitting the target and in the great destruction caused to the target site, with the weapons being laser circuit-guided, and the use of intense missile bombardment. As the report reveals, other features distinguishing the latest campaign from preceding ones are the deployment of munitions whose use SNHR hadn’t previously documented in the Syrian conflict, with an unprecedented intensity, and the difficulty in definitively identifying the responsibility for some of the attacks between Russia or the Syrian regime, due to the presence of launching platforms belonging to the Syrian regime, and others belonging to Russia, with these platforms moving from one place to another, as well as a noticeable increase in use of the double-tap strike policy in dozens of incidents.
 
The report refers to international and human rights condemnations of the bombardment of Jabal al Zaweya area and its vicinity, noting that these condemnations received no response and failed to generate any investigations by Russia or the Syrian regime.
 
The report documents the deaths of 61 civilians, including 33 children and 12 women, one medical worker, one media worker, and one Civil Defense worker in the attacks launched by the Syrian-Russian alliance forces on Jabal al Zaweya and its vicinity, between June 5, 2021, and September 1, 2021; 28 of the victims, including 13 children, seven women, and one medical worker, were killed at the hands of Syrian regime forces, while Russian forces killed 33 civilians, including 20 children, five women, one media worker, and one Civil Defense worker.
 
The report also documents five massacres during the same period, two of which were at the hands of Syrian regime forces and three at the hands of Russian forces.
 
During the same period, the report documents at least 13 attacks on vital civilian facilities at the hands of Syrian-Russian alliance forces in Jabal al Zaweya area and its vicinity, 12 of which were at the hands of Syrian regime forces, and one at the hands of Russian forces.
 
The report stresses that the attacks by the Russian/ Syrian military alliance included in this report have resulted in deaths of Syrian citizens, and in the injury and disability of many other people, as well as exacerbating the already extreme food and health-related suffering of the population, all of which add to the already catastrophic humanitarian situation in northwest Syria at various levels.
 
The report adds that the Syrian-Iranian-Russian alliance forces have unquestionably violated UN Security Council Resolutions No. 2139 and 2254 to stop indiscriminate attacks, and also violated International Humanitarian Law rules of distinction between civilians and combatants.
 
The report notes that neither the Russian or Syrian authorities have conducted any serious investigations into these attacks, or even into any other previous ones, with the Russian and Syrian leaderships, both military and political, bearing responsibility for these attacks based on the principle of command responsibility under international humanitarian law.
 
The report calls on the UN Security Council to refer the Syrian case to the International Criminal Court and hold all those responsible accountable, while UNSC states’ veto power should be withheld when crimes against humanity and war crimes are committed. The report also calls on the UN Security Council to impose UN military and economic sanctions on the Syrian regime, especially the leaders involved in crimes against humanity and war crimes.
 
The report recommends that the international community should support the political transition process and put pressure to compel the parties to implement the political transition within a time period of no more than six months, and to renew pressure on the Security Council to refer the situation in Syria to the International Criminal Court.
 
The report adds that the Russian and Iranian regimes should face heavy fines and financial penalties for the destruction of vital buildings and facilities in Syria. These sums should be reflected in the reparations for the victims and the restoration of the facilities and buildings whose destruction the two regimes contributed to.
The report also recommends that the Independent International Commission of Inquiry (COI) should work on identifying the responsibility of individuals within the Syrian regime who are involved in crimes against humanity and war crimes, publish their names to expose them to international public opinion and end all dealings with them at every political and economic level, in addition to making several more recommendations.
 

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Paris – The Syrian Network for Human Rights notes in its report released today, entitled “In Tandem with the Brussels V Conference, the Largest Russian Military Escalation in Nearly a Year, with al Atareb Hospital and Bab al Hawa Border Crossing Bombed”, that bombing the hospital and aid trucks was a planned and deliberate act, constituting a war crime by the Russian forces, which requires accountability.
 
The 10-page report reveals that the indiscriminate and deliberate aerial bombardment operations by the Syrian regime and its allies on the Idlib region and its environs in northwest Syria have significantly decreased since March 6, 2020, following the ceasefire agreement, clarifying that aerial bombardment continues to be the main cause of the majority of civilian deaths, the destruction of their homes and their displacement, while noting that many artillery and missile attacks from ground platforms have also been recorded, constituting a violation of the ceasefire agreement, and causing the death of many civilians.
 
The report specifically addresses the air and ground attacks launched by the Syrian-Russian alliance forces on Sunday, March 21, 2021, in a sudden military escalation, targeting civilian areas outside the control of the Syrian regime in northwest Syria; these areas contain vital installations and facilities. As the report notes, most of the targeted facilities were bombed for the first time, with the attacks causing civilian casualties and significant material damage to them.
 
The report documents the details of the attack on two areas: Al Atareb Surgical Hospital “Al Maghara Hospital” was targeted by pro-Syrian regime Lebanese Hezbollah militias, while an area near Bab al Hawa border crossing, which includes industrial and relief facilities, was subject to Russian attacks; Bab al Hawa is now the only crossing through which UN aid is able to enter northwest Syria after Russia used its veto at the Security Council against the renewal of Resolution No. 2165, according to which Bab al Salam border crossing was closed.
 
These acts are particularly heinous due to the extreme danger to civilian lives in bombing a hospital, as well as the enormity of the bombing of trucks used to transport humanitarian aid to hundreds of thousands of forcibly displaced persons. The impact of these attacks, as the report notes, extends to the population’s rights to health, food and water, meaning that Russia and its ally, the Syrian regime, have not only obstructed the provision of aid and plundered humanitarian aid, but also bombed it.
As the report further notes, the investigations detailed in it have proved conclusively that the targeted locations were civilian areas, with the report also noting that Russia and the Syrian regime denied carrying out these attacks, or investigated them.
 
Fadel Abdul Ghany, Director of the Syrian Network for Human Rights, says:
“The bombing of hospitals and humanitarian aid consignments and the killing of civilians are explicit blackmail messages from Russia and the Syrian regime to the Brussels Conference and to the states that refuse to rehabilitate the Syrian regime and provide reconstruction funds. The civilians and detainees held by the Syrian regime are used as hostages and tools for negotiation and extortion, and the response from those in charge of the Brussels Conference must be clear in condemning the bombing of hospitals and war crimes, and in ending any coordination with organizations established by the security services, and stressing the linkage of the issue of reconstruction with the political transition from dictatorship and corruption towards transparency and democracy.”
 
As the report reveals, at around 08:20 local time, artillery forces believed to be stationed at a site controlled by the Lebanese Hezbollah militia near Majbal al Zeft in Urm al Soghra village in the western suburbs of Aleppo fired three Krasnopol shells at al Atareb Surgical Hospital (Al Maghara Hospital) in al Atareb city in the western suburbs of Aleppo governorate, resulting in the deaths of eight civilians, including one child and one woman, and injuring about 17 others, including five of the hospital’s medical staff, as well as causing significant material damage to the external hospital structure and to a number of the hospital’s clinics and facilities, putting the hospital out of service.
The report assigns responsibility for this attack to the Syrian regime and Russian forces, as some witnesses who were at the site of the attack confirmed that Russian reconnaissance aircraft had flown over the site before and during the bombing, and later Russian media outlets published a video of the moment the hospital was targeted.
 
The report also documents the Russian forces targeting several vital facilities on the Sarmada-Bab al Hawa Road in the north of Idlib governorate, in an area located only about 4 km from the Syrian-Turkish border, which is surrounded by a group of randomly erected camps, inhabited by Syrian citizens who were forcibly displaced from other areas. The most prominent sites that have been bombed and destroyed were a gas filling and compressing plant, a yard used as a parking area for a large number of trucks and tanks used to transport humanitarian materials and aid, and a relief warehouse. The report provides a visual guide identifying the locations of the attacks launched by the Russian forces.
 
As the report notes, Russian media have published videos documenting the bombing operations which the report includes, with the report also referring to the international and human rights condemnations for the bombing on northwest Syria on Sunday, March 21.
 
The report adds that the Russian regime not only closed the border crossings through the arbitrary use of the veto, but that its violence has extended to the brutal bombing of relief vehicles and warehouses, proving once again that the Russian regime does not respect international law and continues to commit the most heinous types of violations in Syria in support of a regime involved in committing crimes against humanity against its people.
 
The report concludes that the bombing of al Atareb Hospital, which is located within a cave and far from the front lines, confirms that the Russian regime and its Syrian ally are deliberately bombing hospitals, and adds that these attacks by the Russian/ Syrian military alliance included in this report have resulted in more deaths of Syrian citizens, and in the injury and disability of many other people, as well as exacerbating the already extreme food and health-related suffering of the population, all of which add to the already catastrophic humanitarian situation in northwest Syria at various levels.
 
As the report reveals, the Syrian-Iranian-Russian alliance forces have unquestionably violated UN Security Council Resolutions No. 2139 and 2254 to stop indiscriminate attacks, as well as violating International Humanitarian Law rules of distinction between civilians and combatants. The evidence the report has collected indicates that the attacks were deliberately directed against civilians and civilian objects, with the Syrian-Russian alliance forces committing the crime of extrajudicial killing, and their attacks and indiscriminate bombing causing the destruction of facilities and buildings, and there are reasonable grounds to believe that the war crimes of attacking civilians have been committed in many cases.
The report notes that the Russian and Syrian leaderships, both military and political, bear responsibility for these attacks based on the principle of command responsibility under international humanitarian law, as they did not prevent the attacks and did not punish those responsible. Rather, the widespread repeated attacks indicate that they can only be the policy of a state ordered directly from the highest levels of the Russian and Syrian leadership, which implicates them in crimes against humanity and war crimes, and SNHR emphasizes one again that sanctions must be imposed and maintained by various states of the world that target all those involved in these barbaric attacks.
 
The report recommends that the UN Security Council should refer the Syrian case to the International Criminal Court and hold all those responsible accountable, while UNSC states’ veto power should be withheld when crimes against humanity and war crimes are committed.
 
The report urges the international community to support the political transition process, to put pressure to compel the parties to implement the political transition within a time period of no more than six months so that millions of displaced people can safely and settled return to their homes, and to renew pressure on the Security Council to refer the situation in Syria to the International Criminal Court.
 
The report also recommends that donor countries and organizations at Brussels V Conference should fulfill all financial pledges and harness these pledges for the benefit of the worst affected regions and groups; The report firmly believes that the forcibly displaced persons in northwest Syria are suffering the worst need. The report also calls on donor countries and organizations at Brussels V Conference to strenuously avoid providing grants and aid to organizations associated with the Syrian regime and the security services, as these will be employed in a discriminatory manner and solely in the interest of continuing the security and military solution, including the bombing of hospitals and aid, rather than being directed to helping those in need.
 
The report also recommends that the Independent International Commission of Inquiry (COI) should conduct extensive investigations into these attacks, clearly condemn them, and clearly designate the Russian forces as the perpetrators if sufficient evidence is found by COI, in addition to making several more recommendations.
 

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The Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) has today issued its fifth annual report on violations by Russian forces since Russia’s direct military intervention in Syria in September 2015, in which it calls for the imposition of UN and international sanctions on Russia for committing crimes against humanity and war crimes in Syria in which it killed 6,859 civilians, including 2,005 children, and targeted 207 medical facilities.

The 40-page report notes that Russia has always justified its intervention in Syria by insisting that it came about at the request of the Syrian regime which controls the Syrian state; in reality, the report states, however, that this is simply legal misdirection, as there are human rights requirements which must be met to legitimize any military intervention, none of which are fulfilled in the Syrian case, where Russia’s intervention fails to meet any of the criteria.

The report cites two primary criteria which it considers to be the most prominent of these human rights requirements, Firstly: That the military intervention should not be used to commit egregious violations such as crimes against humanity and war crimes, referring to all reports issued by the Independent International Commission of Inquiry (COI), which noted that the Syrian regime has been implicated in committing crimes against humanity and war crimes since March 2011, in addition to dozens more reports by local and international human rights organizations. Therefore, the Russian military intervention on the side of the Syrian regime falls firmly within the context of supporting crimes against humanity and war crimes, as the report notes. Secondly: That Russian military forces are themselves implicated in committing dozens of crimes against humanity and war crimes, and have continued to commit violations in a widespread, deliberate and planned manner over the past five years.

The report provides an update on the record of the most notable human rights violations committed by the Russian forces since the start of Russia’s military intervention in Syria on September 30, 2015, up until September 30, 2020. In assigning responsibility to Russian forces in relation to specific incidents, the report relies on a number of determinants, including cross-checking large quantities of information and statements published by Russian officials, in addition to cross-checking a large number of first-hand accounts, most of which come from central signal operators.

Fadel Abdul Ghany, Chairman of the Syrian Network for Human Rights, says:
“The Russian military intervention in support of the Syrian regime constitutes a profound and shameful stigma on Russia’s modern history, providing additional evidence of the extent of Russia’s barbarity and brutality, as it has bombed residential areas and razed whole neighborhoods from the face of the earth without any mercy. The countries of the world must come together to deter Russian brutality, impose political and economic sanctions on it, and expose the practices of the ruling regime to the Russian people, so that we may witness a mass movement to advance it towards civilization, democracy and human rights.”

The report provides a brief timeline of the Russian strategy during the years of its direct military intervention, focusing on the military strategy in the fifth year, which the report notes varied according to geographical regions. In the northwestern region of Syria, Russia continued to launch attacks on the lines of contact between the areas controlled by the Syrian regime and those controlled by the Armed Opposition/ the Syrian National Army.
Meanwhile, in the eastern region of Syria, Russia has attempted to more effectively extend its incursion there and focused its efforts on two main goals, firstly to support the Syrian regime to regain control of the oil fields, and secondly to stop the ‘Peace Spring’ Turkish military operation, as the report notes.

The report refers to the Russian forces’ failure in southern region, with the security situation deteriorating there, further noting that Russia did not fulfill its promises to release detainees from the areas subject to the agreement of July 2018, which resulted in the displacement of the population of the area viewed as the popular incubator of the uprising to the Syrian North; despite this, however, the arrests have continued, abductions escalated, and the living conditions worsened.

As the report reveals, Russia has used the veto on three occasions in the past year among the 16 times it has used its veto since March 2011, with these three uses being against draft resolutions that attempted to revive Resolution No.2165 issued by the UN Security Council in July 2014, that allowed the United Nations to deliver cross-border aid without the Syrian regime’s permission.

As the report further reveals, since the end of 2018, Russian forces’ attacks are no longer limited to air strikes, have also extended to participation in some ground military operations and using artillery and tanks. The report notes that a number of local and international media have featured reports about Russia’s recruitment of security companies and mercenaries to fight in exchange for material income alongside its ground forces, with this report outlining data on three of these companies.

The report notes that since December 2019, Russia has worked to use the remaining Syrian fighters in the areas whose populations were compelled to conduct forced settlements with the Syrian regime by luring them with huge salaries and other incentives, including offering them exemption from compulsory military service in the regime army, in exchange for being transferred to Libya to fight alongside the forces of General Khalifa Haftar; that is, after the Syrian regime subsequently conscripted many of these fighters into its forces and arrested and disappeared a number of them.

The report notes that Syrian regime issues discriminatory laws in favor of Russia, further noting that a number of contracts have been signed between the Ministry of Oil and Mineral Resources and the Russian Mercury Company, which enabled the Russian firm to obtain a license to explore for oil in the eastern region and north of the Euphrates River.

The report documents the deaths of 6,589 civilians, including 2,005 children and 969 women (adult female), at the hands of Russian forces since the start of Russia’s military intervention in Syria up until September 30, 2020. The report also includes the distribution of the record of the death toll of victims by year, with the first two years of the intervention seeing the largest death toll of victims. The report also includes the distribution of the death toll of victims across the Syrian governorates, where Aleppo governorate saw the largest death toll of victims, followed by Idlib then Deir Ez-Zour.

The report also documents at least 354 massacres committed by Russian forces, and at least 1,217 attacks on vital civilian facilities, including 222 on schools and 207 on medical facilities, since the start of Russia’s military intervention in Syria up until September 30, 2020.

As the report reveals, Russian forces killed 69 medical personnel, 42 Civil Defense personnel, and 22 media workers.

The report also cites statistics on the use of cluster munitions by Russian forces, which amounted to at least 236 attacks, in addition to 125 attacks with incendiary weapons carried out by Russian forces since Russia’s military intervention in Syria.

As the report explains, the escalating violence practiced by Russian forces has had the largest impact in terms of exodus and forced displacement, as Russian attacks, in parallel with the attacks carried out by the Syrian-Iranian alliance, have resulted in the displacement of approximately 4.5 million people.

The report stresses that the Russian regime has been implicated in supporting the Syrian regime, which has committed crimes against humanity against the Syrian people, by providing it with weapons and military expertise and through direct military intervention alongside it. Furthermore, the report notes that the support of a regime implicated in crimes against humanity constitutes a clear violation of international law and makes the Russian regime vulnerable to accountability. The report also stresses that the Russian military intervention in Syria is illegal, regardless of its taking place at the request of the Syrian regime, because this military intervention has been used to continue the Syrian regime’s perpetration of violations against the Syrian people, many of which constitute crimes against humanity and war crimes. In addition, the Russian forces themselves are involved in committing crimes against humanity and war crimes; for both these reasons, the intervention clearly violates international law, making Russia’s regime complicit in the Syrian regime’s crimes.

The report reveals that Russia has used its veto many times even though it is a party to the Syrian conflict, which is a direct violation of the Charter of the United Nations; these uses of the veto have been employed to provide Syria’s regime with impunity for its crimes, giving it absolute immunity, with the veto being used in a wholly arbitrary fashion that contradicts and disregards human rights.

The report stresses that Russia has not launched a single investigation despite launching thousands of bombing operations that have caused the deaths of at least 6,859 Syrian citizens, further confirming its disregard for Syrians’ lives, with this indifference to human life shared with the Syrian regime and with neither having any interest in protecting the people of Syria.

The report’s recommendations include calling on the Security Council to refer the Syrian issue from the Security Council to the United Nations General Assembly after 9 years of failure on the part of the Security Council to protect civilians and ending the Syrian conflict.

The report urges the international community to form an international civilized coalition outside the Security Council to protect civilians in Syria from Russian and Syrian regime attacks free from Russia’s automatic veto.

The report provides a set of recommendations to the OHCHR, the UN Special Envoy to Syria, the European States and the European Union, as well as calling on the Russian regime to stop supporting the current Syrian regime, to apologize to the Syrian people for all violations committed by Russian forces, and to support a genuine political transition away from the dynastic dictatorship of one family and its brutal security services, stressing that this is the only way to achieve security, stability and reconstruction.

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The Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) issued a report today summarizing the most notable violations against medical personnel, noting that 857 medical personnel have been killed and 3,353 others arrested and disappeared since March 2011, nearly 85% of these by the Syrian regime, with 862 medical facilities being targeted, 88% of these by the Syrian regime and its Russian and Iranian allies, exacerbating citizens’ suffering in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.
 
The 44-page report notes that the Syrian regime’s targeting of the medical sector has been deliberate and systematic since the first days of the uprising for freedom, with the fate of dozens of medical personnel arrested routinely since the first months of the popular uprising being still unknown to date. The report adds that the Syrian regime has used state and private medical centers to serve its military or security forces; whilst there was a clear strategy of Alawite sectarian domination within the Syrian regime’s forces, this resulted in double discrimination, firstly in favor of regime forces and secondly on the basis of sect. The Syrian regime also threatened private medical centers in retaliation for providing any form of treatment to injured or wounded protestors.
 
The report stresses that the Syrian regime and its Russian and Iranian allies are responsible for by far the largest proportion of all these violations, with the Syrian regime bearing primary responsibility as the totalitarian entity that controls the Syrian state. Even according to the regime’s own constitution updated in 2012, one of its responsibilities is that: “The state shall protect the health of citizens and provide them with the means of prevention, treatment and medication.”
 
The report draws readers’ attention to the fact that the ruling regime has failed to conduct even a single investigation into the killing of any Syrian medical personnel or into the disappearance of thousands of these vital workers, although Syrian society and the state are in dire need of their skills, more especially in light of the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Showing its usual chilling indifference, the regime has failed to launch any investigation, even a formal, non-independent one which would pose no risk to it. Instead, it has ignored the issue, failing to show even a superficial pretense of caring about accountability, demonstrating that the subject is of no concern to the leadership, which, as the report notes, provides additional evidence of the Syrian regime’s dangerous indifference to Syrian citizens’ lives and wellbeing.
 
Fadel Abdul Ghany, Chairman of the Syrian Network for Human Rights, says:
“Targeting the medical sector and its workers is a fundamental component in terrorizing society and pushing citizens towards displacement. We have noted that medical facilities have always been at the forefront of the targets chosen for bombardment by the Syrian regime and its Russian ally, and the Syrian regime has not released any significant number of the medical personnel whom it has detained or forcibly disappeared since March 2011 despite the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, underlining that it does not care about the lives, care and wellbeing of Syrian citizens.”
 
The report outlines the most notable violations against the medical sector, according to the SNHR’s database, documenting the deaths of 857 medical personnel, including 87 who died due to torture, at the hands of the parties to the conflict and the controlling forces in Syria between March 2011 and September 2020, of these Syrian Regime forces killed 652 civilians, including 84 who died due to torture, three who were included in the Caesar photos, and nine who were registered as dead by the Syrian regime at the Civil Registry. Meanwhile, ISIS killed 36, while the Armed Opposition/ the Syrian National Army killed 29, including two who died due to torture. As the report further documents, the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) killed an additional six medical personnel, one of whom died due to torture, and US-led coalition forces killed 13 medical personnel, while Hay’at Tahrir al Sham killed two, with 50 more medical personnel being killed by other parties.
The report also outlines the distribution of the death toll of medical personnel by year, with 2012 being the year in which the highest death toll was recorded with 158 victims, followed by 2014 with 147 victims.
 
The report reveals that that at least 3,353 medical personnel are still detained or forcibly disappeared at the hands of the parties to the conflict and the controlling forces in Syria, with 3,327 of these detained or forcibly disappeared by the Syrian regime, four by Hay’at Tahrir al Sham, four by the Armed Opposition/ the Syrian National Army, and 13 others by Syrian Democratic Forces. As the report documents, five of the medical personnel who were arrested by ISIS are still classified as forcibly disappeared.
As the report further notes, the largest percentage of arrests targeting medical personnel took place in 2012 and 2013.
 
The report documents at least 862 attacks on medical facilities at the hands of the parties to the conflict and the controlling forces in Syria between March 2011 and September 2020, of which 543 were at the hands of Syrian Regime forces, 208 were at the hands of Russian forces, and 19 were by ISIS, while US-led coalition forces committed 16 attacks. As the report further reveals, 15 such attacks were committed by the Armed Opposition/ the Syrian National Army, while four others were recorded at the hands of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, two at the hands of Hay’at Tahrir al Sham, and one at the hands of the Turkistan Islamic Party. As the report also documents, 54 attacks occurred at the hands of other parties.
As the report also reveals, the highest number of attacks on medical facilities were in 2016 then 2015.
 
The report adds that the Russian forces targeted several medical facilities, despite these facilities’ inclusion in the humanitarian de-confliction mechanism, before Russia quitted the mechanism in June 2020, with the report also noting that 11 medical centers included in this mechanism were bombed 20 times by Syrian-Russian alliance forces. As the report notes, this alliance has deliberately bombed dozens of private medical facilities included in the hospital directory issued by the Syrian regime’s Ministry of Health, which are licensed by the Ministry of Health, with the ministry being fully aware of the coordinates of their locations, demonstrating that the Syrian regime clearly knows exactly which kind of facility it is bombing.
 
In this context, the report notes that the terrible disintegration afflicting the medical sector in Syria as a result of the widespread violations perpetrated against it has been even more starkly evident since the earliest days of the COVID-19 pandemic. The report emphasizes that there is a real and grave danger to the Syrian people, in particular those in areas under the Syrian regime’s control, because of the regime’s catastrophic indifference and failure to take serious steps to limit the spread of the virus. This is because the Syrian regime harnesses most of the state’s capabilities to fund things like paying the salaries of the security services, targeting areas outside its control, launching more arrest campaigns, and continuing to operate its industrial-scale torture apparatus.
 
The report calls on the UN Security Council to take further action after resolutions 2139 and 2254 were adopted, since it has failed to date to impose any obligation to stop indiscriminate shelling which must be adhered to by all parties to the conflict, as well as to compel all the parties to abide by the rules of international humanitarian law.
 
The report also calls on the UN Security Council to put pressure on the Syrian regime to immediately release 3,327 medical personnel, to refer the Syrian issue to the International Criminal Court and to ensure that all those involved in perpetrating crimes are held accountable, including the Russian regime, after having been repeatedly proven to be involved in committing war crimes.
 
The report further recommends that the UN Security Council should impose sanctions on the Syrian, Iranian and Russian regimes which are directly involved in committing war crimes and crimes against humanity against the Syrian people, and calls on it to issue a resolution allowing military intervention in order to protect civilians in Syria, especially medical facilities, from barbaric bombing, as Syrian society is in dire need of them in light of the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.
 
The report also provides a set of recommendations to the International, Impartial and Independent Mechanism (IIIM), to the Independent International Commission of Inquiry (COI), to the OHCHR, and to the Syrian and Russian regimes.
 

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BY: Cia Pak/United Nations

 
(Link below to download full report)
 
Press release:
 
The Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) reveals that Russia and China’s 16 arbitrary uses of veto on Syria has contributed to the deaths of nearly a quarter of a million Syrians, the arrest of nearly 150,000 others, and the spread of impunity, also noting that the timeline of the vetoes shows the extent of the UN Security Council’s (UNSC) terrible failure to protect civilians and establish peace and security in Syria.
 
As the 26-page report notes, the violations committed by the Syrian regime since March 2011, which have also been detailed in reports by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Independent International Commission of Inquiry, along with reports by other international and local organizations, prompted the Security Council to take decisions that should have guaranteed the achievement of security and stability; however, the Security Council’s most serious and potentially effective draft resolutions in deterring the Syrian regime have been repeatedly thwarted by Russia and China through the use of their veto power in defense of the Syrian regime. This assurance of impunity for the regime regardless of its crimes has contributed to an alarming increase in the extent of its atrocities. This impunity also paved the way for the emergence of many other actors from different movements and backgrounds. Russia has used its UNSC veto in favor of the Syrian regime 16 times, including 10 occasions on which it voted jointly with China.
 
The report also notes that since its inception, the Security Council has not undertaken any actual reform process to date that could contribute to, at a minimum, setting limits and standards for egregious cases of this nature in which no country should have the right to veto, involving crimes against humanity, war crimes, extermination, and the use of weapons of mass destruction. The report further notes that the use of veto in such cases leads to a grave lack of confidence amongst victims and the wider public in the Security Council’s credibility and trustworthiness; this harms the image and standing of the United Nations in general, making it clear that all resolutions issued by it are based solely on bargaining and reaching consensus based on the national interests of the five permanent member states whose unanimous approval is required for any resolution to be effective rather than on the wellbeing of the victims. This means that such resolutions are not issued, as they should be, based on the victims’ needs or on international law.
 
The report stresses that the Syrian regime which has consistently disregarded all of the resolutions issued by the Security Council, starting with Resolution 2042 and Resolution 2043 related to Kofi Annan’s plan, continuing through Resolution No. 2139 to stop indiscriminate attacks, including barrel bombs, and end enforced disappearance, as well as following the same pattern with resolutions related to the prohibition of the use of chemical weapons, namely 2118, 2209, and 2235, all of which the Syrian regime has violated hundreds of times. Despite the regime’s flagrant contempt for all UN resolutions, the Security Council has taken no action and has failed to protect peace and security in Syria, from which 13 million Syrian citizens have been displaced to date, and more than 100,000 have been forcibly disappeared.
 
The report states that the failure to protect the rights of millions of victims and the complete impunity that the Syrian regime enjoys due to Russian and Chinese support have caused and bolstered the spread and promotion of terrorist and other extremist ideologies, for which oppression, injustice and instability are fuel, in Syria and internationally.
 
Fadel Abdul Ghany, Chairman of the Syrian Network for Human Rights, says:
“The time has come, more urgently than ever before, for a restructuring of the Security Council, and looking into its permanent membership system, under which the main criterion for membership must be the level of each member states’ provision in the service of humanity, international law and the defense of human rights; until such time, it is necessary to reassess permanent members’ use of veto, which must be strictly prohibited for use in any defense of the perpetrators of crimes against humanity and war crimes, in any denial of humanitarian aid, or in actions which contradict the main principles of international law. The law must be kept sacrosanct above veto power, with the common good of mankind placed before the private interests of any permanent member, and the states parties to the conflict must not vote to the resolutions related to this conflict.”
 
The report outlines the timeline of Russia’s and China’s use of their veto power in favor of their ally the Syrian regime, linking each use of this veto with the corresponding increasing death toll of civilian victims killed by the Syrian regime and Russian forces following the date of the veto. The report also attempts to show the scale of the escalation of the level of killing, in the context of Russia’s and China’s continuous assurance of full impunity for the Syrian regime from any form of punishment.
The report also outlines a cumulative chart showing the reality of the veto use by Russia and China in the UN Security Council, and the civilian death toll of those killed by Syrian-Russian alliance forces in the periods between each time Russia and China used the veto power from March 2011 up to July 10, 2020.
 
The report emphasizes the SNHR’s belief that the most egregious use of veto power was its application in order to protect the Syrian regime over the issue of its use of chemical weapons, which was, as the report reveals, conclusive evidence of both superpowers’ support for the Syrian regime’s use of weapons of mass destruction, noting that this means, in practice, a far wider and complete undermining of the mission for which the Security Council claims to have been established, which is to protect international peace and security.
 
As the report reveals, the Syrian regime used chemical weapons 21 times since the first veto use in relation to chemical weapons issue on February 28, 2017, until the last documented chemical weapons use in al Kbaina village on May 19, 2019. The report also outlines a timeline showing the distribution of these 21 chemical weapons attacks carried out by the Syrian regime amid six Russian vetoes against UN draft resolutions regarding CW use in Syria.
 
The report notes that the Russia and China have used their veto power three times to prevent the delivery of UN aid provided for more than four million internally displaced people, adding that the Security Council has subjected the process of delivering cross-border aid to its hegemony, even though this assistance is humanitarian, neutral, and provided by the OCHA, and is not considered interference in the conflict, being provided to people who have been forcibly displaced.
 
As the report notes, the Syrian regime has committed heinous crimes and violations against Syrian civilians on a daily basis for nine years to date. It has also consistently failed to comply with any of the demands of the International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic, or those of the High Commission for Human Rights, or even Security Council resolutions. The Security Council, which is supposed to take collective measures and action under Article 41 and 42 of the Charter of the United Nations, has also failed because of the immunity granted by Russia to the Syrian regime, with Russia routinely using its veto to protect the Syrian regime, which has not only failed to abide by its responsibility to protect civilians, but has committed and continues to commit the most egregious violations against them, reaching the level of crimes against humanity.
Furthermore, the report states, the type of “conscience-shocking situations” which the UN is required to take action to prevent are exactly what have continued to happen in Syria on a staggering scale, not only in the form of one massacre or one violation but in industrial-scale, continuous killings and torture, sexual violence, enforced disappearances, the use of chemical weapons and barrel bombs, and besieging civilians. In this context, the report cites a report issued in December 2001 by the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty, which stressed that: “The Security Council should take into account in all its deliberations that, if it fails to discharge its responsibility to protect in conscience-shocking situations crying out for action, concerned states may not rule out other means to meet the gravity and urgency of that situation. ”
 
The report stresses that the failure of the UN Security Council has caused the prolonging of the conflict, as well as enabling the emergence of extremist forces, movements and armed factions with diverse religious and ethnic goals, with the Syrian state having been torn apart and more than half of the Syrian people displaced as a result. It was initially and, it appears, wrongly, believed that the Security Council, including Russia and China, would do their duty in playing a vital role in bringing security and peace to Syria, and would impose pressure on the Syrian regime to accept a political transition process since the first weeks of the popular uprising.
 
The report provides charts showing the most prominent losses suffered by the Syrian people as a result of that failure, including the death toll of extrajudicial killings among civilians, children and females, the record of arrests and enforced disappearances, as well as the death toll of victims who dies due to torture.
 
The report also stresses that Russia and China have supported the Syrian regime indefinitely by using the veto in the UN Security Council and through many damaging practices such as voting against UN General Assembly resolutions and the Human Rights Council, aligning themselves publicly and shamefully alongside a regime accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity, further noting that while the conflict in Syria is an internal armed conflict, it is also in part an international conflict, in which countries have intervened directly, including Russia and Turkey. While Paragraph 3 of Article 52 of the Charter of the United Nations states that a party to a dispute shall abstain from voting, Russia has not only not abstained from voting, but has instead arbitrarily interfered in pursuit of serving the interests of the Syrian regime and protecting it in all resolutions related to the Syrian conflict.
 
The report calls on the UN Security Council to initiate fundamental reforms, particularly in the area of the use of the veto in accordance with international law and human rights, and to establish strict limitations and standards for the use of the veto, to place the public interest, especially that of victims and affected countries and the attainment of just security and peace before the economic and political gains and interests of any permanent member state, and to create a mechanism to monitor the extent to which Security Council resolutions are compatible with the Charter of the United Nations, with international law, and with the jurisdiction of the Security Council, and to monitor compliance with established standards for the use of the veto.
 
The report provides recommendations to the UN General Assembly and international community, with recommendations related to expanding the powers of the General Assembly at the expense of the Security Council and to rebuild the relationship between them in favor of the main reference being the General Assembly and not the Security Council.
 
The report also calls on Russia and China to stop the arbitrary use of the veto, as the Syrian regime is involved in crimes against humanity against the Syrian people, to compensate the victims materially and morally for the catastrophic suffering caused by the repeated and arbitrary use of the veto, as well as to provide reparation for the imbalance incurred through accelerating the political transition process and supporting a path of transitional justice conducive to stability, democracy and human rights.
 

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BY: Eskinder Debebe

Press release:
 
(Link below to download full report)
 
In its report released today, the Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) calls on the United Nations to continue cross-border aid delivery even if Russia vetoes the extension of the Security Council resolution, stressing that the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs’ (UNOCHA) humanitarian and impartial intervention shouldn’t be regarded as unlawful or a violation of the sovereignty of states that loot aid.
 
The nine-page report notes that the past nine years have witnessed the most horrific cases in modern history of the Syrian regime blatantly preventing the entry of humanitarian aid into the internally besieged areas, in violation of customary international humanitarian law, with the regime using a starvation strategy that amounts to a form of collective punishment. All attempts by the international community to introduce aid and pressure to allow humanitarian organizations to provide a steady flow of aid, particularly medical and food supplies, to these areas have failed. This failure enabled the Syrian regime to loot as much aid as possible, extorting international organizations, and controlling the entry of aid, consequently increasing prices of materials inside the besieged areas for some commodities, including staples, by nearly 100 times compared to prices outside the besieged areas for the same items, enabling Syrian Regime forces to make hundreds of millions of dollars annually from the crossings and checkpoints set up around the besieged areas alone, excluding aid to the border areas.
 
The report further reveals that the international community, particularly the Security Council, failed to make any progress in terms of delivering aid to the besieged areas, as we have previously indicated. However, in July 2014, after earlier failures of this nature, the Security Council passed Resolution No. 2165, which allows the United Nations to deliver cross-border aid without the permission of the Syrian regime; as the report notes, this resolution provides official recognition that the Syrian regime was responsible for stealing a large part of the aid arriving in Damascus, controlling the quantities of aid to be sent to the areas outside its control, and deliberately delaying the issuance of permits for aid convoys.
 
The report notes that Resolution No. 2165 has been extended on five consecutive occasions, before Russia and China opposed this by using their veto powers against the extension of the draft resolution submitted by Germany, Kuwait and Belgium, which called for extending the resolution for a period of six months, followed by an additional six months. Although the draft resolution stated that it would include all crossings except for al Ramtha border crossing. The report further notes that on January 10, 2020, another draft resolution, No. 2504, which included additional amendments in favor of Russia, was submitted, with the extension being limited to six months, excluding al Ramtha and al Ya’rubiya border crossings, at which time Russia and China abstained and the aid delivery was extended until July 10, 2020.
 
The report adds that the UN Security Council seeks to concentrate as much powers as possible in its own hands, which benefits the five permanent members economically and politically, with the model of its authorization of the delivery of humanitarian aid being based on granting permission through a resolution issued unanimously; this provides clear evidence of the extent to which the Security Council dominates international law and changes this legislation in its own favor. The report stresses that international law clearly states in the Additional Protocol I, Articles 64 and 70 that relief actions shall not be regarded as interference in the armed conflict or as unfriendly acts.
 
The report further reveals that humanitarian aid passes through Turkey or Iraq, with both countries agreeing to allow the entry of aid to Syria, with aid reaching areas under the control of the Armed Opposition forces or the Syrian Democratic Forces, and the dominant forces welcoming the entry of aid. The report explains that the body principally involved in cross-border aid delivery in Syria is the United Nations OCHA, which is a humanitarian, independent, impartial, body, without a military or political agenda, and which provides aid without discrimination; aid is provided to people who have been displaced because of the violations perpetrated by the Syrian regime and its allies, some of which have reached the level of crimes against humanity and war crimes.
 
The report also notes that the Syrian regime’s objection to cross-border aid delivery has no legitimacy or value, but is rather an unjustly arbitrary objection, which aims to obtain funds for the regime itself at the expense of the suffering of the displaced people, adding that interference of the Security Council in the aid entry process has contributed to enabling Russia and China to use this as a tool of blackmail, with the report calling for the lifting of the Security Council’s controlling authority in absolute terms to allow the flow of humanitarian aid without the need for a Security Council resolution.
 
The report stresses that the closure of al Ya’rubiya crossing has caused horrific additional suffering in three Syrian governorates, namely: Deir Ez-Zour, Hasaka and Raqqa in the Syrian Jazira, which houses hundreds of thousands of displaced people alongside its original residents. Rather than being taken from the al Yarubiya border crossing with Iraq directly to the areas where it’s needed, the UN aid is instead first taken to Damascus before being redirected to Deir Ez-Zour or Hasaka hundreds of kilometers away. Not only are the humanitarian convoy forced to make this massive unnecessary detour for no real reason, but worst of all, the Syrian regime’s delaying of these aid convoys is a deliberate strategy carried out in a premeditated and carefully planned manner, with the regime controlling the amount of aid, and plundering some quantity of it.
 
The report notes that the World Health Organization revealed in a recent draft statement that relief organizations working with the United Nations wanted the Security Council to urgently allow the use of al Ya’rubiya Syrian border crossing with Iraq again to deliver aid to tackle the coronavirus pandemic; however, the organization subsequently deleted this appeal, with the report regarding this deletion as evidence that the World Health Organization does not wish to bother Russia.
 
The report relies on the 16th Situation Report issued by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs on June 26, 2020, which notes that 4.1 million people live in northwest Syria, including an estimated 2.7 million people classified as internally displaced. Some 780,000 of the nearly 1 million people displaced between December 2019 and early March 2020 are projected to remain in displacement.
 
The report reveals that the Syrian and Russian regime have not only displaced millions of Syrians, but also seek to steal and plunder current and prospective UN aid shipments intended to relieve these suffering people and protect them from disease and death, in a similar pattern to that seen with the same regimes’ looting and delay of aid intended for the Syrian Jazira, with the report noting that the IDPs are one of the groups most vulnerable to infection with the coronavirus.
 
The report stresses that the UN humanitarian aid can enter northwest and northeast Syria through border crossings without the need for Security Council intervention because it is independent, neutral humanitarian aid, with no political or military agenda, noting that the objection of the Syrian regime in coordination with its Russian ally is arbitrary, based on the presence of a permanent member of the Security Council that absolutely supports the Syrian regime at the expense of international law and human rights.
 
The report further notes that the past six months have clearly demonstrated how the arbitrary closure of al Ya’rubiya crossing adversely affected the people of al Jazira region and the IDPs there, and reveals how the Syrian regime has consistently looted and seized control of UN aid, adding that Russia seeks to use the same strategy in Idlib and its surrounding area to enable the Syrian regime to steal more aid.
 
As the report states, the Syrian regime has targeted humanitarian aid workers and facilities for nearly ten years, including brutally bombing a humanitarian convoy in Urm al Kubra, as well as bombing medical facilities and Civil Defense headquarters, and committing many hundreds of violations that constitute war crimes.
 
The report calls on the UN Security Council to stop controlling the entry of cross-border neutral humanitarian aid, which contributes to the assistance of nearly 5 million Syrian citizens, further noting that the Security Council needs to focus on bolstering its competence to achieve international peace and security in Syria, especially after the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons demonstrated the Syrian regime’s use of weapons of mass destruction, and after its displacement of nearly 13 million Syrian citizens, either as IDPs or as refugees, as well as its perpetration of violations, many of which amount to crimes against humanity.
The report also calls on the UN Security Council to put pressure on the Syrian regime and its allies for an acceleration of the political transition process through a specific timetable, which would end the suffering of the displaced and homeless persons, allow them a dignified and voluntary return, and contributing to restoring stability and security.
 
The report recommends that the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) should continue with cross-border aid delivery and ignore the Russian veto which is arbitrary and contrary to international law, should not submit to the blackmail of the Syrian regime, and must expose the regime’s looting and seizing control of aid, and coordinate and cooperate more with local humanitarian organizations, especially those that have proven themselves to be highly professional, impartial and independent.
 
Finally, the report urges the international community, particularly those states which are nominally ‘Friends of the Syrian People’ to support the United Nations Office of Humanitarian Affairs’ cross-border humanitarian aid delivery, regardless of the Security Council resolution, which is seen as a matter beyond its mandate, and to work towards finding a coordination mechanism among donor countries in order to avoid or minimize to the greatest possible degree the confiscation and looting operations carried out by the Syrian regime of aid that is delivered through it.
 

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